This Week in European Tech: Auxmoney lands €500 million, Glofox’s €200 million acquisition, Germany’s ‘Future Fund’ evolves, EU to set up shop in SF, and more

This week, our research team tracked more than 65 tech funding deals worth over €1.1 billion (debt and equity) and over 20 exits, M&A transactions, rumoursand related news stories across Europe.

As always, we are putting all of them together for you in a list sent in our round-up newsletter next Monday (note: the full list is for paying customers only, and also comes in the form of a handy downloadable spreadsheet).

We’ve also got some news for you: we’re already gearing up for the second edition of the Tech.eu Summit! Save the date:

Tickets are now on sale.

If you haven’t seen them yet, we’ve made all the videos from the Tech.eu Summit last May available as a playlist on our YouTube channel – enjoy!

With that said, let’s got down to business with the biggest European tech news items for the past couple of days (subscribe to our free newsletter to get this round-up in your inbox).

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>> Notable and big funding rounds

UK-based digital-first home healthcare platform Cera has raised $320 million in funding (equity + debt). The new investment will allow the startup to expand from servicing 15,000 to 100,000 at-home patients each day.

Düsseldorf-based consumer loan provider auxmoney has secured another €500 million in debt funding this time via Citi and Natixis. This now brings auxmoney’s debt funding to just over €3 billion.

Munich-based identity proofing and digital identity provider, IDnow has secured a new debt facility worth €60 million from BlackRock.

Oxfordshire-based startup that develops silicon anodes for lithium-ion batteries, Nexeon has raised $60 million from US-based Ingevity Corporation.

London-based employee benefits platform Ben has raised $16 million in a Series A round that will see the company up the headcount as it further pushes the envelope on its SaaS and payments technology offer.

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>> Noteworthy acquisitions, mergers, IPOs and SPAC deals

Fitness business software company Glofox has been acquired by US-based ABC Fitness Solutions for a reported €200 million.

Gilead is buying MiroBio, a privately-held UK-based biotechnology company, for approximately $405 million in cash.

EV Technology Group has agreed to acquire specialist manufacturer, Fablink Group Holdings in a deal valued at £38.8 million. Northamptonshire, UK-headquartered Fablink has annual revenues of £110 million.

Robotic process automation (RPA) company UiPath has acquired Re:infer, a London-based startup that’s developing natural language processing (NLP) tools for enterprises.

Zug, Switzerland-based Saleshub has acquired ExactVisitor, and Techtracker, merged all three brands to become Demand, and raised $6.3 million in the process.

The Netherland-based cloud consulting company that manages private and public cloud migrations Sentia has been acquired by Accenture.

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>> Interesting moves from investors

The German government and KfW are gearing up to distribute €1.2 billion in funding (debt and equity) for high-growth startups and even publicly listed tech scale-ups by 2030 under the guise of its “Venture Tech Growth Financing” (VTGF) program. The VTGF 2.0 initiative is part of Germany’s ‘Zukunftsfonds’ or Future Fund, which KfW has been commissioned to implement.

London-based investment firm that manages venture capital, growth secondary, and venture debt funds, Flashpoint has wrapped up $102 million for its VCIII fund. The fund will focus on global Series A tech startups originating in Emerging Europe.

Berlin-based Vorwerk Ventures has closed on a €150 million fund for European startups.

Cornerstone VC, born out of black-led angel group Cornerstone Partners, has rolled out a £20 million fund to invest in exceptional entrepreneurs in the U.K. from diverse backgrounds.

After opening its third office in Munich earlier this year, Europe’s largest impact fund, Summa Equity, now turns its attention west with a Palo Alto, California office opening.

Tapestry VC weaves in over $30 million, adds $20 million for Amaranthine and forward investments.

Dublin-based Furthr VC, previously known as DBIC Ventures, has announced the growth of its latest fund to €32 million.

Techstars, a global startup accelerator that helps entrepreneurs succeed, announced on Monday that it has partnered with the automaker Audi to support innovative founders working in the digitalisation and mobility spaces.

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>> In other (important) news

The European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union government, is opening a San Francisco office on Sept. 1 that will liaise with Silicon Valley companies affected by EU tech regulation.

Supermarket giant Ahold Delhaize has put plans for an IPO for its online retail arm Bol.com on ice because of the prevailing market conditions.

Italy is close to clinching a deal initially worth $5 billion with Intel to build an advanced semiconductor packaging and assembly plant in the country.

The European Commission’s antitrust enforcers are investigating Google’s app store rule.

The U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has provisionally green-lighted the proposed $8.1 billion merger of cybersecurity companies NortonLifeLock and Avast.

Legal experts in the UK have opened a public consultation on the legislative changes required to support the issuance and transfer of digital securities on blockchain and DLT systems.

Tencent is trying to become Ubisoft’s single-largest shareholder – overtaking that of the French company’s founding Guillemot family.

France, Italy and Spain are stepping up pressure on the European Commission to come up with legislation that ensures Big Tech firms partly finance telecoms infrastructure in the bloc.

On the back of a funding round of $80 million in June, Germany’s ground transportation platform Omio has partnered with Uber to offer its inventory and technology to enable users to search and book international and national train and coach routes via the Uber app.

Berlin-based music and audio platform SoundCloud has confirmed that it has already begun the process of reducing its workforce by approximately 20%.

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>> Recommended reads and listens

July 2022 in European Tech: Deals, exits and gearing up for the holiday season.

Tech.eu Summit: Wise co-founder and CEO Kristo Käärmann on going up against ‘Big Banks’ with a long-term strategy.

Will a weaker euro lead to greater US investment in European startups?

5 top European cities for remote working

The work of a VC in times of economic uncertainty doesn’t change much, argues Molten’s Christoph Hornung. It does, however, require more caution and analysis.

CEE startups funding report: €2B over 242 investments in Q2 of 2022.

The UK must make significant changes to its R&D strategy if it is to achieve the government’s goal of becoming a science and tech “superpower”, according to a cross-party House of Lords committee.